Holocaust survivor remembers Oskar Schindler

[Jim O]

Thirteen-year-old boys play baseball or soccer, fidget in school, hang out with their buddies and start looking at girls.

Not so Leon Leyson. At that age he was working 12-hour-shifts in a factory, standing on a box so he could reach the lathe, constantly hungry and always afraid.

That was in 1943, and he was one of the youngest to work in Oskar Schindler's factory near Krakow, Poland. He was there because Schindler had brought Leyson's father into the factory to work as a tool and dye maker. He was one of the first Jews that Schindler asked to work in the factory, and requested soon after to bring his family to work there as well. Schindler agreed.

"We were living in a small town, Narewka, near Krakow," Leyson said. "There was always a lot of anti-Semitism in Poland, and we were used to it. But we were rounded up with other Jews and sent to the Krakow ghetto in 1941." The ghetto had 12-foot walls, with only three gates to get in and out. There were 15,000 Jews in 320 residential buildings, and 3,167 rooms. As a result, one apartment was allocated to every four families, and many less fortunate lived on the street.

"You can't imagine life in the ghetto," he says. "We were short of food, fuel and space. My father had a pass to go to work, and he would come home from the factory with coal hidden in his coat, or food in his pockets. It was a good day when there was bread."

In 1943, when the ghetto was shut down by the Nazis, Jews were transported to work camps. One of Leyson's jobs before Schindler included him in his factory was breaking up grave markers to make roads. It's in the movie, he said.

But Schindler built a camp closer to his factory for his workers and the Leyson family moved there. "Word drifted in about the death camps," Leyson said when he spoke to a packed room at the Laguna Hills Community Center on June 22. "I was constantly worried we weren't going to make it.

"People think we went like sheep," he adds. "But people resisted. Meanwhile Nazis were creating killing factories and death camps. Some ask why we didn't run away. But there was nowhere to go. Not one nation lowered their borders or welcomed Jews.

"I was the youngest. My oldest brother was 19, and he ran from the ghetto and went back to our small town where he was murdered along with all the rest."

Another brother, 17, got on a transport train with his girlfriend, because they were told they were going out in the country to work. Schindler found him but the boy wouldn't leave his girlfriend, Leyson said. He was sent to a death camp.

Most of his Leysons' family did not survive. His grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins, were all exterminated by the Nazis. Leyson, his father and brother, his mother and sister, were all saved with the intervention of Oskar Schindler.

"It was hard to accept that a civilized country like Germany, with its philosophers, scientists, the music and universities, could think this was the right thing to do. That's the crux of it. Just contemplate that."

Sometimes when Leyson was working in the factory, Schindler would come down from his office and he'd stop and talk to people, Everyone knew when he was coming because he smoked aeromatic cigarettes. Often he'd leave half of a pack on a workbench for Leyson's father, and would bring the boy pieces of bread.

"He called me 'Little Leyson,'" he said. "He would ask how I was doing, and sometimes after these occasions my ration was doubled. He never accepted Nazi idealogy. There was nothing behind Nazi eyes, but Schindler's eyes had a sparkle."

At one point Schindler found Leyson's mother at work where she was cleaning buildings. "This was the character of the man," Leyson said. "He told my mother not to worry. He was a hero.

"If I told you how many times my life was in danger, if I'd taken the wrong step. Once I was pulled out of a line by a guard with others my size. But I lined up with another group to see my mother, and I made it out. None of my friends survived."

When the war was over, Leyson's brother and sister went to live in Israel, and he and his parents came to the United States. He married, has two grown children and grandchildren. He taught school in Huntington Park, in the shop where he used the skills his father taught him.

Leyson said Steven Spielberg's movie, "Schindler's List," was accurate in events. "But he was a kind and decent human being," he said. "Better in real life than depicted in the movie."

In 1965 Schindler came to Los Angeles and Leon Leyson went to the airport to meet him. He planned to introduce himself, but didn't have to. When Schindler saw him, he said, "I know you. You're Little Leyson."


Source: The Orange County Register